By Jordyn Pair
mlive.com
WASHTENAW COUNTY, Mich. — A Washtenaw County Sheriff’s deputy who shot and injured a man last year told him to drop his weapon — a sharpened butter knife — at least 10 times before he opened fire, according to recently obtained footage.
The deputy had stopped on the side of Geddes Road near Woodlands Drive in Superior Township around 8 p.m. Sept. 21 after a passerby notified police of an ongoing stabbing, according to Michigan State Police reports recently obtained by MLive/The Ann Arbor News through a Michigan Freedom of Information Act request.
The stabbing victim, a 53-year-old woman, had been driving a 22-year-old man and another person home when the man reached under his seat, pulled out a butter knife and began waving it around, she told police. She then stopped the car and began to fight for control of the knife, the report reads. A passerby stopped to help her and ultimately called emergency responders, according to the report.
Investigators noted in the report that the butter knife appeared to have been sharpened.
Footage shows the deputy driving up to the scene with activated emergency lights before jumping out of the car with his weapon drawn. Two figures can be seen struggling with each other and shouting before one of them turns toward the deputy.
The deputy tells the man to “put the knife down right now” and “relax, relax,” according to footage. As the man breaks into a run toward him, the deputy fired three times before saying, “shots fired, shots fired. One down.”
Officials have not said how badly the man was injured in the shooting.
No charges had been issued and the case remained under investigation.
The deputy told the man to drop his weapon a total of 12 times, according to footage.
The names of the stabbing victim, shooting victim and involved deputy were all redacted from the reports. The Washtenaw County Sheriff’s Office declined to confirm the name of the deputy.
In her conversation with police, the 53-year-old woman told police that the deputy “had no choice, (the man) wouldn’t have stopped.”
Another witness interviewed by police said he heard the man shout “shoot me” as he ran toward police, although that cannot be heard on the footage.
The relationship between the shooting and stabbing victims is unclear.
Both were taken to the hospital. The woman had multiple lacerations to her head, the deputy said while on-scene, according to footage. She was released from the hospital shortly after the incident, the report reads.
The unredacted portions of the report do not note the extent of the man’s injuries. The man was medically released from the hospital, but was still at the hospital for mental health reasons, sheriff’s Commander Eugene Rush said last month.
The deputy who fired his gun was not injured.
The investigation, although officially marked open, was turned over to the Washtenaw County Prosecutor’s Office on Dec. 17 , according to Lt. Rene Gonzalez, Michigan State Police spokesperson.
It will be up to the prosecutor’s office to issue any charges.
The case is under review, Victoria Burton-Harris, Washtenaw County chief assistant prosecuting attorney, confirmed in February.
“As far as we know, he’s going to be cleared,” Kenneth Grabowski, a member of the executive board for the Police Officers Association of Michigan, said of the deputy.
“It was a clean shooting. He did what he was supposed to do.”
The Washtenaw County Sheriff’s Office declined to comment on the investigation, including sharing whether the officer is still actively on duty.
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